8161720: Better byte behavior for off-heap data
Summary: Normalize boolean values read with Unsafe.
Reviewed-by: aph, simonis, jrose, psandoz
--- a/jdk/src/java.base/share/classes/jdk/internal/misc/Unsafe.java Fri Aug 26 10:14:15 2016 -0700
+++ b/jdk/src/java.base/share/classes/jdk/internal/misc/Unsafe.java Tue Aug 30 09:30:07 2016 +0200
@@ -1600,11 +1600,50 @@
return weakCompareAndSwapShort(o, offset, c2s(expected), c2s(x));
}
+ /**
+ * The JVM converts integral values to boolean values using two
+ * different conventions, byte testing against zero and truncation
+ * to least-significant bit.
+ *
+ * <p>The JNI documents specify that, at least for returning
+ * values from native methods, a Java boolean value is converted
+ * to the value-set 0..1 by first truncating to a byte (0..255 or
+ * maybe -128..127) and then testing against zero. Thus, Java
+ * booleans in non-Java data structures are by convention
+ * represented as 8-bit containers containing either zero (for
+ * false) or any non-zero value (for true).
+ *
+ * <p>Java booleans in the heap are also stored in bytes, but are
+ * strongly normalized to the value-set 0..1 (i.e., they are
+ * truncated to the least-significant bit).
+ *
+ * <p>The main reason for having different conventions for
+ * conversion is performance: Truncation to the least-significant
+ * bit can be usually implemented with fewer (machine)
+ * instructions than byte testing against zero.
+ *
+ * <p>A number of Unsafe methods load boolean values from the heap
+ * as bytes. Unsafe converts those values according to the JNI
+ * rules (i.e, using the "testing against zero" convention). The
+ * method {@code byte2bool} implements that conversion.
+ *
+ * @param b the byte to be converted to boolean
+ * @return the result of the conversion
+ */
@ForceInline
private boolean byte2bool(byte b) {
- return b > 0;
+ return b != 0;
}
+ /**
+ * Convert a boolean value to a byte. The return value is strongly
+ * normalized to the value-set 0..1 (i.e., the value is truncated
+ * to the least-significant bit). See {@link #byte2bool(byte)} for
+ * more details on conversion conventions.
+ *
+ * @param b the boolean to be converted to byte (and then normalized)
+ * @return the result of the conversion
+ */
@ForceInline
private byte bool2byte(boolean b) {
return b ? (byte)1 : (byte)0;